It seems that BioShock Infinite’sVGA trailer, while dazzling many, fostered concerns in others—primarily about the game’s AI. Shawn Elliot, level designer at Irrational Games, has now addressed those concerns.

Speaking to Now Gamer, Elliott explained how enemies are not “bullet sponges,” and why they seemed to largely ignore Booker’s (the player’s) presence.

“The initial AIs in that sequence when you see the thing in its entirety, they’re distracted in combat – so it’s Vox and they’re fighting Founders – and so when you’re pulling in on that line their attention is very much directed at those guys on the ship that are flying in and are they’re attacking them.

“But you don’t see that in the frame and in the trailer and it just looks as though they are guys staring off somewhere and they don’t know you’re there – which is, of course, the case, at that point they don’t know you’re there.

“And then there’s another thing that we probably didn’t get across, that those guys in there – the ones with the rockets and the flak – they’re heavy duty enemies, so that means that they might seem a little bullet-spongey cause by design they take quite a few hits to take down.”

In short, Elliott stressed that their design choices are in dialogue with the narrative elements of the game—that like its predecessors, BioShock Infinite is not a shooter in the conventional sense. While the main gameplay mechanic may involve unloading bullets into bad guys, BioShockInfinite is not a game that ought to be likened to Call of Duty. Nor should it be held to CoD’s shooting mechanic standards.

Chris Holzworth has wanted to write about games all his life. He first cut his teeth writing for enthusiast sites such as RPGFan, and after writing for just about every other enthusiast website he could came across, wound up as EGM's east coast news correspondent (read: editorial intern) before relocating to LA to serve as news editor. You can follow his rants about storytelling on Twitter @manadrive.[Meet the rest of the crew]